I offer this question upfront as one you might need by the time you are half way through one blog post. I hope you laugh, but suspect a large range of other emotions are also on offer including panic, shock and anxiety that Japan may confine the whole of the Western world to a padded cell after hearing me photograph a toilet.

Hi, my name is Elizabeth. Welcome to my life.

I can also be found on twitter (discussing everything) and Google+ (largely obsessing about planets)

Stretching 12 blocks through the centre of the city, Odori Park in Sapporo is home to a wide variety of festivals that take place in the city throughout the year. None, however, is as famous as the 'Yuki Matsuri' or 'Snow Festival'.

Asahiyama Zoo in Hokkaido is one of the most popular zoos in Japan, with a visitor count of over 3 million a year. This number is surpassed only by Ueno Zoo in central Tokyo and the race is close, with a difference of a scant half-million in 2006, compared to a population ratio of 320,000 : 13 million.

You know that feeling where you begin a test filled with certainty that the 100%, A-grade, best-student-ever, candidate for lord-and-master was in the bag? Only to be faced with soul crushing defeat of only one correct answer out of five, thereby proving every local 2 year old your superior?

No? Then let this be a lesson in humility whereby you never admit this to my poor broken soul.

"American border guards," I explained to my student as we boarded the aeroplane for New York City. "have a reputation for being … " I searched for a word that would describe the situation sufficiently to avoid surprise, but not so descriptively that leaping from the plane as it rolled down the runway would be appealing.